Hibernation Advice Please

[sandy]

Originally Posted by TessaRuth

Hello Sandy. I seem to remember you helped me out before. Yes, they have heating and the interior temperature is between 20C and 30C and they have light for around 15 hours a day. They just want to sleep. They are healthy but just seem to want to shut down earlier this year than before. I'm just worried that if I let them hibernate too soon that I'll have to wake them up sometime in January which seems very early. Last year they kept going longer and so didn't start hibernation until the beginning of December. Any advice much appreciated.

Those temps inside are not high enough, under the heat source the temps should be more like 32c and the ambient temp should be around 25c. Lower temps and your tortoise will go into hibernation mode. Also inside they might well need more light, so any sort of light will help. Temps at night have dropped quite drastically from early September.